Battle Over Bighorns: State Seeks Solutions to Domestic Vs. Wild Sheep Conflict

A political and wildlife crisis surrounding one of Idaho’s iconic animals is brewing between state officials, environmentalists and the domestic sheep industry.

At odds are an industry established before the Oregon Trail and advocates for bighorn sheep, a species pictured in American Indian rock wall paintings in Hells Canyon.

Environmentalists want to end domestic sheep grazing on public lands, where they say bighorns are dying off.

Sheep ranchers say their $17 million-a-year industry, which has struggled since the 1960s, would collapse without access to federal grazing areas.

"This could lead to massive closures of grazing lands across the state," said Laird Noh, a Kimberly sheep rancher and former legislator who once chaired the Senate’s Resources and Environment Committee. "There could be no-trespassing signs up all over."

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill closed grazing allotments in Hells Canyon and the Nez Perce National Forest last year after Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project sued.

Now, the battle has turned to Magic Valley. In December, the group sent letters to U.S. Forest Service officials in Twin Falls and Burley, indicating lawsuits could be filed to block grazing in the South Hills and Jim Sage area near Oakley, home to two bands of bighorns.

The crisis sparked meetings of top state agency officials this fall after Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter ordered the state Department of Agriculture and Department of Fish and Game to intervene and to prevent lawsuits. This week, agency officials said they were close to a final proposal, which Otter may see on Feb. 15.

The governor also formed a committee of environmentalists, industry leaders and state officials to find a long-term solution. After some contentious meetings that group is having a hard time finding common ground.

The environmental groups, especially, are unhappy with the progress, and they hint lawsuits are still an option.

Environmentalists allege that Idaho’s 260,000 domestic sheep are decimating bighorns, which were reintroduced in the 1970s after populations fell to almost nothing. In 1990 the state had 6,500 bighorns. Now it has 3,500, wildlife officials say.

Some wildlife biologists suspect domestic sheep transmit a pneumonia-like disease to bighorns, which lack immunity. Bighorns often die a few days after contact with domestics.

Tim Schommer, who has researched bighorns for the U.S. Forest Service in Hells Canyon, cites the winter of 1983-84, when scientists spotted two herds of bighorns mixing with domestic sheep along the Snake River. Both bighorn herds experienced massive die-offs shortly thereafter.

The phenomenon is comparable to decimation of American Indians because of smallpox introduced by Europeans, said Jon Marvel, director of Western Watersheds. But even Marvel concedes that scientific field studies don’t prove domestics infect bighorns.

Doesn’t matter, says Marvel, adding that the probability that mingling is fatal is enough to separate the species.

In his federal rulings, Winmill agreed. The Forest Service, which initially opposed Western Watersheds’ challenge, changed course after bighorns were seen near grazing areas.

For now, separating the species seems to be the favored solution. The state agency plan, which is not yet final, would create sheep-free zones where domestics and bighorns alike would be shot.

Idaho already kills a half-dozen bighorns a year that mingle with domestics, said Jim Unsworth, Fish and Game’s wildlife bureau chief and a member of the planning group.

"What we need right now is an interim plan," he said. "And separation is a management tool that seems to work."

That’s the policy in Wyoming, where a similar working group in 2004 recommended the species should be kept apart pending further study.

Cassia County commissioners advocate a more dramatic form of separation. At the urging of sheep rancher Don Pickett the commission sent Otter a letter earlier this month urging removal of bighorns from the South Hills.

Twin Falls County commissioners are considering a similar letter, Commissioner Tom Mikesell said Thursday.

Ranchers say domestic sheep have little to do with the problems of Idaho bighorns, especially in the South Hills.

"The sheep there just don’t do well, even though there’s been no known interaction with domestic sheep," said Noh, whose son John is on the governor’s committee.

The ranchers blame the die-off on transplant stress, rough handling by researchers, predators and South Hills habitat that is not ideal for wild sheep.

Noh’s main argument is that the science isn’t conclusive. He points to recent research by Donald Knowles, a veterinary research pathologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Disease Research Unit in Pullman, Wash.

"It is premature and inappropriate based upon the complete body of literature and current research investigation to allow domestic sheep to be the focus as a major cause of bighorn disease and herd decline," Knowles wrote in an article to be published next month.

Nevertheless, the state seems ready to separate the species even if it means killing them.

Western Watersheds has proposed using public or private money to buy out the grazing rights of sheep ranchers, but family’s like the Noh’s, who’ve ranched in southern Idaho for four generations, aren’t likely to surrender their livelihood for a price.